The sustainable future development
of China’s rangelands depends on integrating nomads’ indigenous knowledge.

By Daniel Miller

5235 Western Ave., NW, Washington,
DC 20015

Rangelands cover 40% (400 million
ha) of China’s land area – making China second only to Australia in the extent
of its rangeland resources.About 75%
of China’s rangelands are found in the semi-arid pastoral areas in the north
and west, with the Tibetan pastoral area, comprising 140 million ha, the largest.

China has some 260 pastoral
counties, which accommodate about 39 million people, including some of the
poorest people in China.Many of them
are nomadic pastoralists who are very susceptible to changes in the health and
productivity of the rangelands from which they obtain their livelihood.

China’s rangelands have been used
for livestock grazing for thousands of years. Yaks are believed to have been
domesticated on the Tibetan Plateau about 4,500 years ago, and the construction
of the Great Wall, which was built to control nomadic societies, was initiated
2,000 years ago.History among nomadic
pastoralists in China is the result of multifaceted interactions among culture,
ecology, and personal actions.Over
centuries, nomads acquired complex indigenous knowledge of their rangeland
environment and the domestic animals they herded.

The future of China’s rangelands
is of increasing concern. The rangelands of China are the headwaters for many
of Asia’s major rivers, and what takes place in these grazing lands has
implications for millions of people downstream. A number of China’s rangeland
ecosystems are also recognized as global priority areas for conservation of
biodiversity, as they contain highly distinctive species, ecological processes,
and evolutionary phenomena. Despite their extent and importance, China’s
rangelands are degrading seriously, and the country’s range managers face many
challenges.

As a first step, the sustainable
future development of China’s rangelands must recognize the significance of
nomads' indigenous knowledge of the environment and management of rangeland
resources.

Indigenous knowledge is the
unique, traditional, local knowledge that people have of a particular
geographic area. The development of indigenous knowledge systems – which covers
many aspects of life, including rangeland management and animal husbandry – has
been a matter of survival for nomadic pastoralists throughout China, including
those on the Tibetan Plateau.Indigenous
knowledge systems of nomads are cumulative, representing generations of
experience herding livestock, careful observations, and trial-and-error
experiments. This knowledge enabled nomads on the Tibetan Plateau, for example,
to develop sophisticated range-livestock management practices in an environment
that posed considerable risks. Indigenous knowledge systems are also dynamic as
new information is constantly being added.

Nomads Are Skilled Range Managers

Nomads raise native livestock that
are adapted to local environmental and production constraints. For example,
Tibetan nomads raise the yak, which is superbly adapted to the high altitude
and the cold environment of the Tibetan Plateau.Native Tibetan sheep and cashmere-producing goats are also
important species of livestock.

Tibetan nomads usually raise a mix
of livestock species each of which has its own specific characteristics and
adaptations to the environment.The
multi-species grazing system combines yaks, sheep, goats and horses together
and maximizes the use of rangeland vegetation.Different animals also have varied uses and provide diversified products
for home consumption or sale. Large numbers of male yaks are often kept as pack
animals, and male yaks and sheep/goats are used to provide animals for sale and
for nomads own consumption.

Livestock mobility and flexible
use of rangeland were strategic elements of traditional Tibetan pastoralism and
the keys to survival. Rangelands are parceled into seasonal pastures and used
according to diverse managerial and production objectives. The traditional
nomadic pastoral systems that evolved used extensive grazing management
strategies adapted to local environmental conditions. Tibetan nomads, like
nomads elsewhere in China, did not move randomly across the rangeland; rather
their movements were often well prescribed by complex social organizations and
were highly regulated.

Environmental risks on the
rangelands were mitigated through livestock and grazing management
strategies.Livestock mobility,
flexible use of rangelands, and diverse herds were key elements of traditional
pastoral production systems and contributed to the high ecological stability of
the pastoral systems. Nomads maintained a diverse mix of goals for livestock
production and survival; they kept a diverse mix of livestock in terms of
species and class; and they used a diverse mosaic of rangeland sites,
exploiting seasonal and annual variability in rangeland resources.

The flexibility of traditional
Tibetan nomadic pastoralism – which emphasized multi-species herds, complex
herd structures, regular movement of livestock, and linkages with agricultural
communities – developed as a rational response to the unpredictability of the
ecosystem.The survival of numerous
prosperous groups of Tibetan nomads bears witness to their extraordinary
indigenous knowledge, resourcefulness, and animal husbandry skills.

Tibetan nomadic pastoralism
evolved through long-term adaptation and persistence in a harsh environment and
the grazing and livestock management systems that developed were intelligent,
aggregate behavioral responses by Tibetan nomads to the resources and risks of
one of the most inhospitable rangeland environments on earth. Because they are
skilled, experienced, proficient, expert, able, adept, and masterful, Tibetan
nomads, like nomads throughout China, are“professional” range managers, despite being illiterate.

China’s Rangelands Are Being Cropped

Traditional livestock production
and grazing management strategies throughout much of the pastoral areas of
China have been greatly altered in the recent decades as the nomadic pastoral
way of life has been transformed to one more oriented toward a market
economy.

The goal of livestock production
in most pastoral areas is now to increase livestock off-take, which has been
promoted through privatization of herds and rangeland, less migration by the
nomads, intensive grazing management strategies, and introduction of rain-fed
farming techniques for growing forage and fodder.Large areas of rangeland have also been converted to cropland,
which is one of the primary causes of rangeland degradation.

Many of these interventions have
been responses to political or economic objectives but, in many instances, they
have conflicted with the goal of maintaining rangeland ecosystem health and
stability.The promotion of improved
and scientific animal husbandry systems has also jeopardized many worthy
aspects of traditional nomadic pastoral systems.Both the rangeland environment and the indigenous nomadic
pastoral cultures are under threat in areas where the culture of mobile
pastoralism has been eliminated or substantially reduced.

Large tracts of China’s rangelands
are now degraded. It’s estimated that about 34% of all rangelands in China are
moderately to severely degraded and about 90% are degraded to some degree.
Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Gansu are experiencing degradation levels well
above the national average.

Current livestock production
systems in many of the pastoral areas of China now appear to be unsustainable
and the development of intensive livestock production systems as a means to
increase production of livestock products and alleviate poverty in pastoral
areas will place additional pressure on rangeland ecosystems.

In China, many attitudes towards
rangeland ecosystems appear to be influenced by the notion that sedentary
agriculture, particularly crop-based agriculture, is the superior development
option.Rangelands are viewed as
systems to be controlled and modified, much like cropland, rather than to be
managed as natural ecosystems.This
view is reflected in many of the terms like grassland construction and
grassland ecological-engineering that are used in discussion of pastoral
development.Development is focused on
agronomic and production aspects instead of ecological sustainability.There appears to be little acceptance of the
fact that most of the rangelands in China are of low productivity or that this
situation is unalterable, either for ecological, technical and/or economic
reasons.

New Thinking And Research Needed

There is a similarly narrow-minded
view of the validity of traditional nomadic pastoral production practices. The
purposeful movement of nomads’ herds is often viewed as wandering and an
unsound type of use of the rangeland, instead of an efficient utilization of
forage. Nomads themselves are often perceived as backward and ignorant.

These views are not supported by
research findings which suggest that nomads possess considerable indigenous
knowledge and that many of the traditional nomadic pastoral strategies and
practices are rational and ecologically and economically sound, given the
environmental and socio-economic constraints under which nomads operate.These findings suggest that fresh, objective
assessments of nomads and nomadic pastoral systems in China need to be made
before completely discarding them.

The issue is compounded by the
limited approach taken to rangeland ecosystem research in China.Researches have generally neglected such
topics as the effects of traditional pastoral systems on rangeland ecology, the
dynamics of herd growth and traditional risk management strategies among
nomads, and the impact of large numbers of farmers into pastoral areas to
convert rangeland to cropland.

Other problems include a general lack
of applied, interdisciplinary ecosystem-level research, which would provide a
better basis for developing more integrated and sustainable rangeland and
pastoral development programs.A
disproportionate amount of rangeland research is directed towards livestock
production rather than understanding how livestock fit into the wider
ecological system and how to optimize production in an environmentally and
socially sustainable way.

Nomads have played an important
role in the rangelands of China for thousands of years.As such, the social dimension of rangeland
ecosystems should be an important aspect of research and development in the
pastoral areas but, unfortunately, it is not. Thus, little information is
available about nomadic pastoralism and misconceptions abound with regards to
nomads and their way of life. In China, both organizational divisions between
academic disciplines and the intellectual assumption that views human beings as
separate from their natural environment have impeded the integration of social
and natural scientific research in rangeland environments.

The rationality of nomadic
practices needs to be better acknowledged and nomads’ indigenous knowledge has
to be incorporated into research and development programs. Paying attention to nomads’
indigenous knowledge can create more respect for traditional pastoral systems
and foster partnerships for resolving issues. Better acknowledgement of nomads’
knowledge systems can help build a more sustainable future for the rangelands
of China.